opm disability retirement and request for accommodation

There is an overriding principle that, where excellence is sought, higher expectations are exceeded. Acceptance of a given human condition and resignation to that which is less than the best, is to embrace the heart of banality and to reject that august status reserved for the human species, of being above the animals and just below the angels. There is a syndrome for that; of thinking and believing that one’s situation is all that one can hope for, and this resignation to life’s circumstances occurs when mediocrity becomes the meddlesome cousin to dashed hopes and dreams, […] Read More …

“Language is a labyrinth of paths. You approach from one side and know your way around; you approach the same place from another side and no longer know your way about.” #203, Philosophical Investigations, Ludwig Wittgenstein. Life is never a static construct; those who consider it so, are sorely left behind when the winds of change suddenly fill the sails and the slumbering ship awakens with a groan to pull free of its moorings. Left behind are the days when a person could count on the vocation of the parent, or of a career singular throughout. […] Read More …

We learn at an early age to create a world of make-believe; of knights and princesses extracted not from the dungeons of the feudal world steeped in hunger, mass epidemic deaths and living conditions unfit even for the rats which lived and traveled freely in the underbelly of wealthy kings and courtesans, but from the literary imaginations of later dreamers. Or of happiness couched in syllables of uncertain saliency, where we talk ourselves into believing that fairness is inherent in games of chance, that speeches make for belief, and what people do behind closed doors are for the privacy of minds and mindless chatter, not for public consumption before the vote is cast. […] Read More …